[clug] broadband ISPs in Canberra

[Andrew Pollock]

On Sat, Sep 25, 2004 at 05:56:29PM +1000, Steven Hanley wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 25, 2004 at 02:38:45PM +1000, Kim Holburn wrote:
> > I have heard it said that 60% or more of the equipment in a telephone 
> > exchange is for billing.  If you can handle all that and more in 
> > software it cuts the cost considerably.  Now if you took away telephone 
> > traffic charges how much more simple does that make the system?
> 
> That 60% thing would not really surprise me. Alex Satrapa or Martijn van
> Oosterhout can probably back me up on this. Looking at the way traditional
> phone companies do their billing (Telstra, AAPT, Optus, etc) it is amazing
> how inflexible it is and how much human intervention is required on top of
> the complexity in their billing systems in the software that handles calls.
> Moving things in to software as Kim suggests does indeed allow one to cut
> costs tremendously, using generic computers and well written software to
> habndle huge amounts of data extracted from some simpler hardware just makes
> sense I imagine.
> 

Billing is a bitch. No matter what it is. If only flat rate took off, it'd
make life easier for everybody...

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